Metropolis As Lang example essay topic

"Metropolis" is one of the very very few of silent movies which still finds an audience, which means a lot. But which version? The problem is that we will never be able to see "Metropolis" as Lang has conceived it. I saw the movie for the first time in 1968, and I remember a scene in which Maria, Rotwang's prisoner, is released by Joh Fredersen. In the versions displayed in the nineties, this scene seems to have vanished in the air. The running time is never the same, some more recent versions include hints at Rotwang's love for Freer Fredersen's mother Hel.

But this character, Hel, never appears in the restored versions: only photographs show this subplot, actually very important: before we thought that Rotwang urges his robot to destruct the machines because... because... he was crazy: that did not satisfy us. In Thea Von Harbou's original screenplay, he did it out of jealousy, because he used to love his master's wife. For Fredersen, the robot is first a way to replace working men, tireless slaves; then, when it takes Maria's face, and the men go crazy and violent, it allows the boss to use violence and repression against them. In Metropolis, two worlds coexist: the subterranean one, where human beings are in bondage (see Maria's hints at the Bible), the Yoshiwara, the Rich's paradise. Is it really a paradise anyway? It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, this paradise for the elite (remember Maria showing it to a group of children) Joh Fredersen, a member of the privileged understands his happiness is a fake one, when he sees first the young girl, then the terrifying underworld, this sub city where the poor sweat, suffer and die for the sake of an idle aristocracy.

The screen play has been often criticized because of its naive political ideology: Heart must be the mediator of work and capital. It has not worn well admittedly, but outside this moral, everything is great, as impressive today as it was in 1927! Do you think that, say", close encounters of the third kinds" will stand the test of time as good as Lang's magnum opus, and remain a classic in 2050? Dubious isn't it?

The architectural genius of the German Master explodes everywhere, his masterful using of the crowds leaves us in rapture, his dreamlike sequence is at least 20 or 30 years ahead of its time. The characters (Fredersen father and son, Rotwang and Maria) are convincing and the plot is more complex that it seems to be. (the flaws are caused by missing parts of the movie, as I said before) Fritz Lang said:" I do not like Metropolis, its conclusion is wrong. I did not accept it even when I was making the movie" A black legend surrounds "Metropolis": Hitler enjoyed it and asked Lang to become the "official" director of the Third Reich; he refused, left Germany and it was Leni Riefenstahl who filmed such nazi manifestos as "Triumph des Willems". Besides, Hitler might have thought of concentration camps because of "Metropolis". Even more bewildering: building in Mauthausen a huge stair, the prisoners said:" it looks like "Metropolis" " Metropolis is a must, see it at any price!